Tony Abbott has used a keynote address to the World Economic Forum in Davos to burnish his new government’s free market credentials and urge world leaders to prioritise growth, free trade and competitiveness as global economic recovery remains fragile.

In first major post-election speech on the economy and economic policy, the Australian prime minister set down some broad philosophical markers.

Abbott told the forum markets were “the proven answer to the problem of scarcity” and, borrowing from Abraham Lincoln, he said governments should do for people “what they can’t do for themselves – and no more”.

The rise of the middle class in China and India had been driven by technology and by aspiration, he said, and by an instinct that “empowered citizens can do more for themselves than government will ever do for them”.

Officialdom, he said, had begun to grasp “that human freedom is less a threat than an opportunity”. Where people had freedom, they created markets, he said.

While most governments around the world produced economic stimulus packages in response to the global financial crisis, Abbott strayed into partisan politics with some criticism of the former government’s Keynesian tendencies.

The prime minister said Labor had departed from the surplus maxim of the Howard years with spending that lingered beyond the crisis.

“The reason for the spending soon passed but the spending didn’t stop because, when it comes to spending, governments can be like addicts in search of a fix,” Abbott told the forum, arguing the policy under his Labor predecessors Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard was “spend our way to prosperity”.

Australia, he declared, was “under new management, and open for business”.

Abbott produced a shopping list of his policies for attendees at the World Economic Forum, using them as case studies of initiatives to boost “growth, participation and productivity”.

He said Australia would use its presidency of the G20 to promote global growth. He declared he wanted “respectful but robust discussion of each country’s national plan”.

Abbott has used the preamble to his Davos visit to reflect negatively on international talkfests. On Thursday night he said he wanted the G20 meeting in Brisbane to produce a communique “just three pages long explaining precisely how good intentions are being put into practice”.

The G20, he said, must focus on trade, and “at the very least … renew its commitment against protectionism and in favour of freer markets”.

“My hope is to have a really frank leaders-only discussion in Brisbane about the biggest issues we face, including digitalisation and its implications for tax, trade and global integration,” he said.

He said the G20 would tackle taxation and the problem of business artificially generating profits to “chase tax opportunities rather than market ones”.

Abbott said companies should pay tax in the countries where the revenue was earned, rather than profit shift.

Australia's prime minister, Tony Abbott, has told the world's economic elite in Davos, Switzerland, that they should all be 'missionaries' for free trade. Abbott pledged to use his country's presidency of the G20 group this year to promote growth and lower taxes